Lab-Made Jellyfish Hints at Fix for Damaged Hearts

Lab-Made Jellyfish Hints at Fix for Damaged Hearts

Researchers have designed a bioengineered jellyfish that can swim, an early step in scientists’ quest for a way to make fresh tissue for patients with damaged hearts. The lab-made jellyfish is created with a mix of silicone and rat-heart cells. Although it isn’t a living organism, the robot’s muscular structure closely resembles that of a real jellyfish, enabling it to swim freely through water.

Scientists hope that such techniques will make it possible to harvest cells from one organism and then reorganize them in sophisticated ways to make a bioengineered system for human use, such as a heart pacemaker that wouldn’t require battery power. Details of the experiment were published in the journal Nature Biotechnology.